The Atlantic analyzes Chicago taxi companies' 'novel' lawsuit

The Atlantic today took a closer look at the "novel" move this week by Chicago-area taxi operators, who are claiming in a lawsuit that the city is violating their rights by allowing unregulated ride-share services run by Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. to operate on its streets.

As Bloomberg and the Sun-Times reported yesterday, the cabbies and their trade association say Chicago has failed to apply taxi and limousine rules to the two San Francisco-based companies.

Uber and Lyft typically take a cut of fees from transactions booked through their apps, Bloomberg noted. The two companies argue that they shouldn't have to comply with Chicago's existing regulations because they're different from taxi dispatchers.

The Atlantic today noted that the cabbies' "legal logic is provocative (whether you agree with the drivers or not)," and that the cabbies have "smartly – if a bit disingenuously – cast the suit not as a battle to protect incumbent businesses from innovation, but as a bid to protect taxi riders from price-gouging, criminal drivers, unsafe vehicles, and service that discriminates against anyone who doesn't have a smart phone, or who lives in a neighborhood where an UberX driver simply doesn't want to go."